The OPC Foundation is providing information about important topics – in case you have questions, please contact office@opcfoundation.org
Updated bylaws and new affiliate policy
Continuing the ongoing commitment to governance and transparency, the OPC Foundation has updated its bylaws. These new bylaws, approved by the Board of Directors, will come into effect on January 1st, 2025.
While most changes are considered to be housekeeping updates to ensure state-of-the-art and effective operation, there is a significant update regarding the handling of larger enterprises with affiliated companies: Affiliates of OPC Foundation members are now categorized into two categories: “Conventional Affiliate” and “Independent Affiliate” member. All affiliates are automatically considered “Conventional Affiliate” providing a clean legal operational background for large enterprises. “Independent Affiliate” are identical to independent “Corporate members”. To streamline the bylaws, these rules have been extracted and defined in a separate document called the “Affiliate Participation Policy.” This policy provides a fair and scalable framework for the treatment of affiliated companies.
All enterprises with affiliates in the OPC Foundation should review these new rules and prepare the necessary steps. For more details, please refer to the articles “Updated Bylaws of the OPC Foundation” and “New Affiliate Participation Policy.”
Join us for an informative webinar hosted by the OPC Foundation, where we will explain the updates to our Bylaws and introduce the new Affiliate Participation Policy. This session is designed by engineers, for engineers, ensuring that the content does not require deep legal expertise. The webinar is scheduled for the Tuesday, 28th of January. Please register here.
Board election process and results
The Board of Directors is democratically elected by the OPC Foundation members (categories Corporate and end-users). Each year, about half of the Board seats are up for election for a two-year term. The process of this year’s election is described below:
- Aug 14th, 2024: E-Mail to all Designated Representatives requesting nominations for seven (7) open board seats to be received by September 20th, 2024.
- Sept 20th, 2024: The OPC Foundation received seven (7) nominations
- Nov 1st, 2024: Ballot was sent electronically to all Designated Representatives via Big Pulse
- Nov 11th, 2024: Reminder was sent via Big Pulse to all Designated Representatives who have not voted yet
- Nov 25th, 2024: Reminder was sent via Big Pulse to all Designated Representatives who have not voted yet
- Dec 2nd, 2024: Election closed at 5 p.m. MST
In total 22.9% of Designated Representatives participated in the election process and voted.
Results of election: Elected to Board seats for 2025-2026:
- Bernhard Eschermann – ABB
- Matthias Damm – Unified Automation
- Stefan Hoppe – BECKHOFF
- Takashi Shibata – Mitsubishi Electric
- Jan Bezdicek – Rockwell Automation
- Claudius Link – SAP SE
- Aurelien Le Sant – Schneider Electric
Find more details about all directors on the board here
OPC Foundation member fees
The OPC Foundation is a worldwide, non-profit organization with over 1000+ members in different member categories. The associated fees with those categories have been stable since 2013.
- Corporate members are OPC technology providers that offer OPC products.
- End-User members are the consumers of OPC-based products.
- Non-Voting members are organizations such as government and research institutions, universities, and non-profit groups that require information on OPC technology, but who do not build or market OPC-based products.
- UA Logo members offer OPC UA products.
The Board of Directors decided to
- … create a new category “Startup” which allows startup companies to become an OPC Foundation member with full rights. This opportunity is limited to the first 5 years of the Startup’s existence and a revenue below $2M.
- … introduce two new classes “Class AA” and “Class AAA”: Also, the OPC Foundation has been affected by the high inflation and increased costs for technical work and marketing activities. While, with careful planning and the help of our long-term partners, the effects on our members have been limited over the past years, yet, in 2026, additional revenue is needed to maintain the operation of the OPC Foundation. To not affect companies with less than $1B in those though economic times, instead of raising the fees for the existing classes, two new classes “Class AA” and “Class AAA” are going to be introduced. Please remember that a world revenue over >$100M has been the highest member category defined in the early years of the OPC Foundation. We believe that this is no longer fair, as there are companies with world revenue in different dimensions as member of the OPC Foundation.
As we are aware of the economic situation, we providing early notification of the new member fees for “Class AA” and “Class AAA” in 2026 and 2027.
The companies in “Class AA” and “Class AAA” will be informed individually.
OPC Foundation’s General Assembly Meeting 2024
The OPC Foundation’s General Assembly Meeting (GAM) 2024 announced the results of the Board election for period 2024/2025, reported on the 2024 budget, provided both a technical and marketing overview, gave updates on the initiatives for both field and cloud topics, and provided initial marketing insights for 2025.
The GAM web conference was held on Wed, Dec 6, 2024 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM EST
Download the presented slides here
The first slide contains a link to the 71min recording.